Board To Decide Slaughterhouse Fate

Horsemeat Plant Appears Unlikely To Win Approval

A final decision is expected Wednesday on a controversial plan to bring a horse slaughterhouse to a vacant building in the center of unincorporated Big Foot.

Opposition to the proposal has been loud and organized. McHenry County Board members compare it to the 1997 uproar over a gravel pit operator that wanted to move to a spot just outside Hebron.

"I've never seen a group more well organized, really, with the facts and the research," said County Board member Mary Lou Zierer of Harvard, whose District 6 includes the site of the proposed meat-processing plant.

County Board Chairman Michael Tryon said the emotionally-charged decision--whether to issue a conditional-use permit to let a company set up shop to butcher horses for human consumption--should be settled on the basis of compatible land uses.

"In the unincorporated area of Big Foot, you're looking at a commercial slaughter operation next to a restaurant next to homes," Tryon said. "As a land-use decision, the question is, `Is this a compatible use?' That's how I'm making my decision."

The County Board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the McHenry County Government Center, Woodstock.

The board will consider the Zoning Board of Appeals' unanimous rejection of a permit request from the Belgium-based Velda Group. Velda supplies horsemeat to vendors in Europe, Asia and other foreign markets where it's considered a delicacy.

The Big Foot plant would process about 150 horses a week. Because all the meat would be shipped overseas, the facility would not generate sales-tax revenues for the county, though company officials have promised to bring 40 jobs to the area.

"I am going to be voting against it," Zierer said. "It shouldn't be there. I just don't think it's right for downtown Big Foot."

Many of Big Foot's 85 residents, and hundreds from outside the community, expressed similar sentiments in letters, petitions and phone calls after the first standing-room-only hearing in January.

They formed Voice of the Equine to address fears of horse thievery, and drafted an anti-slaughter resolution that has been adopted by such communities as Bull Valley, Hebron, Island Lake and Wonder Lake.

"I'm just hoping the County Board goes along with the Zoning Board," said VOTE member Joyce Kurpier, who boards horses a few miles from the site. "A lot of people have said they don't want it, and I hope they listen to the people they represent."

Velda's misfortune is that it chose to locate in McHenry County. The county is home to the largest horse population in Illinois, according to the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service.

Officials of the company last fall submitted plans to the county to move its sole U.S. horse slaughterhouse, doing business as Cavel International, from 4 acres in DeKalb to 2.4 acres along U.S. Highway 14 that, until October, housed the Big Foot Cattle Co.

Because the zoning board voted 7-0 to deny the permit, the County Board would have to garner a two-thirds majority--16 votes--to issue the permit.

"I haven't talked to anybody who thinks we should go against what the ZBA did," said County Board member Don Larson, also a District 6 representative from Harvard. "We need slaughterhouses, but we can find a better spot."

A Pork King hog-processing plant, for example, is located along a remote stretch of Illinois Highway 23 between Marengo and the Northwest Tollway.

Velda had leased its DeKalb facility since 1987 and wanted to buy there, but the city rejected the plan because the properties it wanted to purchase were too close to a residential area.

Heading north, Velda last autumn came across Big Foot Cattle, a Vienna Beef subsidiary whose plant had been put up for sale only a few weeks before. The well-equipped facility was a rare find, said Velda officials.

Velda's attorneys assert the firm has met all of the requirements of the conditional-use permit, including conditions set by the zoning board regarding security, traffic and the storage and disposal of animal byproducts.

Those arguments have failed to persuade opponents. They say the old beef slaughterhouse stunted the growth of Big Foot, which has not seen any building since the late 1950s--about the same time a dairy moved out and the packing plant moved in.

"I'd hate to start that all over again," Larson said. "The people who live there now don't want it."